Circus performance “Ballroom” / Post uit Hessdalen (Belgium)
Creation: Stijn Grupping & Ine Van Baelen
Performance: Stijn Grupping
Direction: Ine Van Baelen
Music: Frederik Meulyzer & Jochem Baelus
Scenographer: Lodewijk Heylen
Choreographer: Kinga Jaczewska
Light design: Lucas Van Haesbroeck
Costumes: Nushi Lambreva
Technic: Bert Laurijssens
Acting coach: Rob Smorenberg
Outside eye: Koen Haagdorens
Graphic design: Watson Memić
Coproduction: Circuswerkplaats Dommelhof, MiramirO, CIRKL & Perpodium
with the support of de Vlaamse Overheid
thanks to: MAD festival & hetpaleis & thank you Karolien Derwael, Good Company, Frans Heylen, Dajo Peeters & Je Buro
Location: @ the square near the Priekulė Culture and Art Center (Turgaus str. 4, Priekulė)
Duration: 35 min.
Recommended for children from 5 years
Critiques corner**
“It makes Ballroom a circus performance with not only impressive technical juggling skills, but also a visual magic that instantly makes you feel like a child again. Because beyond the groundbreaking technique that creates wonder, this performance also simply makes you dream, until after half an hour you bounce like a ball back into reality.” Selection Het TheaterFestival 2025. From the jury-rapport.
"Never seen such astonishing bouncing balls-yet. Until one ball suddenly stops bouncing. We end up in a magical-realist universe where the balls appear, disappear and float. The distinct concept and narrative magic made Ballroom a favorite of many experienced festival visiters." Nik Waldram
FedUpDay, YawnDay, Don’tWantToDay, ProcrastinationDay, NotFreeDay, TooTiredDay, Where’sTheSunDay.
Somewhere, Someone has been tasked with putting the same balls into the same crate over and over again. Someone does this day in, day out, year in, year out, and no one actually knows why. Hoping that the walls won’t collapse on Someone, Someone starts throwing the balls against the walls. And so, the balls travel ever further though the space, in a way that is sometimes graceful and deceptively simple, sometimes powerful and complex. If all goes well, they land neatly in the crate.
But things don’t always go well. And how much of that ‘not-well’ can Someone take?
As the balls become so much dead weight, Someone Somewhere tries to unravel a new dimension in space and time – or is it in the mind? – in order to escape the colourless monotony. And when that works, something happens that could be called pure magic.
For Ballroom, you take a seat in a converted lorry. Inside, visual artist Lodewijk Heylen has created a concrete set-in which juggler Stijn Grupping, thanks to a lot of practice and a little magic, creates an incredible dance of bouncing balls. Accompanied by the sounds of musicians Jochem Baelus and Frederik Meulyzer, he takes you on a wordless journey.
Post uit Hessdalen is a company that makes unique music theatre. The film-maker and circus artist Stijn Grupping and theatre-maker Ine Van Baelen are its core artistic members, but they also involve other performing artists in each new creation. In this changing collective setting the company creates hybrid stage creations that combine several artistic disciplines in an innovative stage idiom: theatre, video, visual art, circus etc. In each creation it enters into confrontation with live music and/or soundscapes and aims to visualise connections between our senses, our powers of comprehension and our actions.
https://www.postuithessdalen.be/
Photo: from company archive
